The characteristics and mechanisms of the mechano-electrochemical effect were investigated both theoretically and experimentally for two steels (AISI 1020 and 52100) in various heat-treated conditions subjected to sequential erosion and corrosion. A mathematical equation is developed to describe the mechano-electrochemical effect in which the corrosion rate is exponentially related to the change of corrosion potential and increased stored strain energy.The agreement between calculated and measured corrosion rate is good for the annealed AISI 1020 steel and both the annealed and the tempered AISI 52100 steels, in which the microstrain and stored strain energy originate only from erosion.